


not gonna lose you

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [99]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: C-PTSD, Disabled Character, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Abuse, M/M, Mentally Ill Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Recrimination, recovery is a spiral, self-worth is a problem, sometimes things get better, trauma-bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5259539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten minutes ago, he wanted to claw his skin <i>off</i>, maybe felt like all of that shit was going to do it for him and rip its way out from the inside no matter what he did. </p><p>Now he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. body

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.
> 
> Actually pretty sure this one does in fact conclude the food-issues-discovery mini-arc. (Watch me be wrong again. >.>)

Steve's breath brushes one side of Bucky's neck on every exhale. 

The stucco of the ceiling has a chip in it, and Bucky keeps his eyes open, stares at the chip, mostly because if he closes his eyes and stops looking at the real world, the one inside his head might come back again. The one that mixes up memory and nightmare and fuck knows what and tries to force itself inside, beat its way down his throat and under his skin. Ten minutes ago, he wanted to claw his skin _off_ , maybe felt like all of that shit was going to do it for him and rip its way out from the inside no matter what he did. 

Now he doesn't. 

(And the question fucking leaks out of the torn places, runs out of the shreds and gape of the holes, and the question's _what fucking right have you -_ and you can cut it off and you can stop it but it just mixes itself back up and oozes out a different shape, _how fucking dare -_ ) 

Steve's breath brushes one side of Bucky's neck on every exhale. 

He's breathing slow and light, resting breath; makes for a mix, stimuli mingled, warm in the middle and cool at the edges; cool at the start and the finish and warm in between. Except it's hard to feel with that much precision, so mostly the brain just gets confused by all the shit the nerves send and it ends up being different. Different feeling. Neither one nor the other. 

Steve's other hand rests against Bucky's throat and his neck, pads of his fingers resting just short of Bucky's spine, the edge of the little-finger side of his hand pressing just barely more along the edge of his collar-bone. Webbing between thumb and forefinger curving around the side of his neck to his throat. Tip of Steve's thumb just crossing Bucky's larynx, span of his hand and gravity conspiring to make that the point of most pressure. Barely. In a matter of fucking fractions of . . . whatever the fuck it is. Millibars. Something. 

The air isn't warm. Steve is: he's warm living heat, stretched against Bucky's left side, hips half over his, stomach against his, space between Steve's ribs cradling the fucked up mangle of metal and meat and bone scattered under Bucky's skin, on that side. Steve's arm resting across his ribs and chest and shoulder, so his hand can stay on Bucky's neck, at his throat. He's warm through the cloth of his clothes, through Bucky's clothes, enough that Bucky's not sure it's even fucking _real_ or if it's just his head deciding heat gets to stand in for the shit it won't let him name, and then wrapping it all around Steve's skin and body and making metaphor something else. He doesn't know. It's so fucking hard to tell. 

Doesn't matter. 

Ten minutes ago he felt like static under his skin was going to fucking rip its way out from the inside and now he doesn't. Maybe that matters. And Steve's lying across his left shoulder, arm, metal - and that can't fucking be comfortable. That matters. 

Doesn't know if the thing inside that writhes its way around when he thinks that and then thinks he should fucking pay attention to it and move because Steve'll stay there all fucking day and insist its fine, the thing inside that whines like a fucking kid or like the fucking kitten when she doesn't want to move - that thing, he doesn't know if that matters. 

Snarled wire of thought says it does, it matters, he doesn't have to move, he doesn't have to do anything, but he doesn't know if he can believe it. A lot of fucking thoughts try to tell him a lot of fucking things. 

This time when Steve moves, Bucky makes his own left hand move, drops his arm and presses his palm against the futon so he doesn't try to hold on again. 

(The thing he's trying not to think might be the idea of the shape of a thought that this might be better than before, the thought of the shape of an idea that might be he feels better than he did, trying not to think it because if the thought has a shape it snaps like a cable and leaves a welt bleeding into his fucking brain so - )

Steve leans on his right arm. His left hand moves, too, with his fingers sliding back towards Bucky's spine, thumb resting against the corner of his jaw instead of his throat. Bucky closes his eyes when Steve leans forward to kiss his forehead, then rest there. 

Until Steve says, "I'm gonna ruin the moment, and point out you need to eat something. Actually, _we_ need to eat something. More or less now." 

And maybe the weak-but-wry joke of it's just enough to let it slide past his stupid fucking brain without catching an edge and ripping something open. Steve pushes himself up, gathers himself in to sit and Bucky makes himself open his eyes. 

Sighs. 

Manages to have a thought that actually fits into the shape of fucking words and says it, says, "Why the fuck hasn't Stark come up with a way to make it so we can just fucking photosynthesize?" And then manages maybe half of a real look of amusement at the way Steve's face folds up into real consternation. 

"Can you not suggest that to him?" Steve says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Besides I think I remember Elizabeth saying he's not allowed to mess around with biological stuff without supervision." 

Bucky snorts, softly. "Probably fair," he admits, pushing himself up to sitting, too, even though the left side of his back feels like someone just dragged a razor-blade up and around where his ribcage isn't anymore. Maybe if his body could just _stop_ for a while - "He did manage to create artificial life by accident already," Bucky makes himself say, dragging his head away from the other thought, "who the fuck knows what he'd manage if he started with shit that's _already_ alive." 

Steve pauses in the act of getting up.

"Accident?" Steve asks. The kitten jumps down, trotting over to her food bowl, tail straight up and vibrating. Bucky tries to roll his left shoulder and then tries to hide the wince. 

It's still overcast outside, Bucky can see the sky through the sliding door, over Steve's shoulder. Fucking clouds. Granted he could probably put any noun there. Well. Maybe not any. Maybe he hates less of everything than he did before. 

"S'what he said," he replies. "Meant to make an integrated program to keep track of his life, ended up with JARVIS." 

Steve blinks, looking up, at the wall, through to the middle distance for a second, and then shakes his head, covering his eyes with one hand. 

"Only Tony," he mutters. "Only Tony could _accidentally_ make sapient life." 

"Sapient life that's less of a clusterfuck and has way more common fucking sense than him, too," Bucky says. Steve's mouth twitches. 

"Honestly," he says, looking thoughtful, "I think I might be happier knowing that." 

He holds out one hand and Bucky's back hurts enough to let Steve help pull him to his feet. "Anything seem less awful?" Steve asks, and Bucky knows he means food. And for a second, Bucky tries to grasp at some kind of wry amusement, some kind of game, something, but he's too tired. That's all too far above him, floating on the surface, and he can't reach. 

"No," he says, because it's true, and nothing else comes. The idea of eating hits a swell of revulsion, and thinking of any specific kind of food doesn't make it more, or less. It's been that way for days, now. Maybe more than a week; he's not tracking time well, and he doesn't feel like digging out the fucking phone to look at the calendar. Maybe if he weren't so tired he'd be able to find some kind of nasty humour in the thought of _be careful what you wish for_ , but right now it's just a dull weight: he'd wanted to stop winding up a petulant toddler over food, wanted whatever impulse to fight about it like a kid in a sulk, and hey - he got that. The wound up impulse to pick the fights, snap, lash out, that's all gone. 

So is any actual desire to eat anything. At all. Now he just . . . forgets. The timers on his phone mostly work, but not if he gets distracted - if he gets distracted after they've gone off but before he's actually pulled something out, the memory of the timer just sort of gets. . . lost. It's still there, he might even remember hours later (usually when the next fucking timer went), but it gets fucking misfiled. 

Kind of like now. He should've eaten when he came in. Made the cough stuff for Wilson instead, because the hacking crackling cough grated across his nerves, and then . . . forgot about it. Phone's somewhere in the bedroom. Might even be buzzing its little fucking head right off. 

The point is, whatever it is used to make him dig his heels in and fight is gone, at least for now; instead, there's just the revulsion at eating he can't shake, but isn't enough to counter knowing that he should, if he remembers. All in all Bucky's not actually sure it's a worthwhile fucking trade. 

Steve pulls something in a Pyrex container out of the freezer, frowns a little as he reads the note taped to it, and then takes the lid off to stick it in the oven, instead of the microwave. He sets up the timer so that it'll actually turn the oven off once the cooking time's done - they both try to remember to do that, since the one time months ago the frozen breaded chicken fingers actually caught fire. 

(Only for a moment. After he dumped the smoking, charred on mess in the sink while Bucky opened the windows and door, Steve'd scowled at it hard enough that Bucky'd given him a quizzical look. "All I can think of right now," Steve'd said, "is Becky Lowe going on about how with no woman in the place we'd burn it down, or starve to death.") 

It's obviously something of Hill's, and Bucky almost tells Steve not to waste it, because it's also obviously not going to fucking help. Doesn't. He's not sure why. 

Maybe he wants to be wrong. 

He doesn't get to be, not tonight: when it's finished heating, he eats what Steve passes him on the plate, but it's mechanical and automatic, the revulsion still there but ignored. He doesn't really want the water he drinks after it, either, but at least it takes the taste of food out of his mouth. 

He watches Steve, as Steve takes the empty plates and rinses them off, puts them in the dishwasher, wraps up the leftovers, wipes the counters, fucking feeds the idiot cat, does just about every fucking thing. _He_ should be doing that, should at least be fucking helping, but his body's not really answering him and he stays stuck in tall chair at the counter, where he sat to eat. 

Steve moves around the kitchen, doing all of that stuff, all the stuff that puts it back in order, and Bucky watches him while he moves. Remembers when it used to be him keeping an eye Steve, when Steve was like this, and him being the one looking for the awkward, the stiffness, the hesitation that meant Steve was ignoring some ache. And you'd think being able to remember that would make a difference to the shit his brain pulls here, but - 

And it isn't fair. After a whole life stuck in a body that hurt, that dropped out on him, that let him down over and over again, Steve should get the chance to just fucking enjoy the part where he isn't anymore, and never really has. That thought sticks in his head. In Bucky's head. Something in the back of it screams there's something wrong with the thought but he can't . . . get hold of it, and he probably shouldn't be listening to anything _his_ brain is fucking screaming anyway. 

Steve warms two mugs of coffee up in the microwave and when they're hot again he puts one of them by Bucky's arm on the counter. And Bucky digs at one of the hairline seams on his left finger with his right thumbnail and says, "Even you can't pretend the last ten days haven't been complete fucking shit." 

That's not the way he meant to say that. God damn it. 

There's enough time for a heartbeat, maybe two or three, before Steve says, "Bucky, there is honest-to-God no possible level of shit anything could be, that could even come close to making it worse than when you weren't here. So yes, it's been a shitty week-couple-days. S'been worse than that for you. And I'm still more fucking grateful than I can say that you're here, so I can have a shitty week _with_ you. And there's no argument that can make that not true." 

Bucky scrubs his right hand over his face and tries to ignore the way something inside his head and his chest both contract. Says, "Nice phrasing," looking through the coffee mug. It's the one that reads _Good morning! I see my assassins have failed._ It's pretty much guaranteed it was just the one closest to hand when Steve grabbed two out of the cupboard, because Steve never notices, but there's still a tiny knot in Bucky's brain that tries to figure out what the message is, won't believe there isn't one. 

"Thanks," Steve says. "Put some careful thought into it." 

He touches the palm of his hand to the top of Bucky's shoulder, and Bucky closes his eyes; Steve smoothes his hand over Bucky's living shoulder and down his back in slow circles. Says, "Come soak in hot water, your back's a mess." 

 

And hot water helps. Stupidly hot water, anyway. 

The kitten takes up her dubious vigil from the small round table beside the tub, her tail wrapped around her as far as it'll go. Bucky ends up sitting, water only up to the bottom of his rib-cage, until Steve gets in behind him and pulls him back. 

Well. "Pulls". Rests a hand on Bucky's shoulder with barely any pressure. Lets the arm slide down and then under Bucky's to rest around Bucky's ribcage, when Bucky lies back against him. Maybe you could call that pulling, if you fucking stretched it. 

With both of them in the tub, and lying like this, the water gets to the back of his neck. The heat soaks in through his skin and now the only problem is getting his fucking body to let go, to release the _active_ fucking tension, because the remainder's bad enough. That part's . . .

The feeding tube, the ghost of it, sticks to the back of his throat; the restraints stick to his skin. They linger in his body and he wants to claw them out but they're not what's playing in his head. Not what's fucking him up. 

In his head it's a grey concrete room under a fluorescent light that hangs down from the bare copper and steel and lead where a ceiling isn't. In his head it's that fucking room and the smell of it and the shadows and he's standing in the middle of the light. No one else. No minders, no guards. Just him. Sternum cracked. Ribs cracked. Laceration and abrasion and bruising everywhere else. 

And just him, and _Him_ , and the cold, disgusted litany of sin. 

That's what plays in his head. That son of a bitch's voice, where he can't get away from it. 

And he wants to stay where he is, lie where he is, in the heat in the water with Steve's skin against his, arms around him, hands on him, he _wants_ to and he _can't_. He can't. Pulls away anyway. Sits up anyway. 

And Steve lets him go. 

He wishes he could tell Steve to stop doing that. Tell Steve to stop, don't let go, tell Steve it's just the parts of him that are fucking crazy, fucking broken, ignore it and hold on and wait for it to give up and go. He can't, it won't work, it'd be fucking _dangerous_ but he's so fucking tired, and he wishes he could. 

Steve sits up, too. The water moves, sloshing back and forth. Bucky feels Steve's hand rest against the back of his right shoulder, body-warm but still cooler than the water, before Steve says, "What?" 

It's a fair question. Bucky just doesn't know how to answer it. The concrete room plays in his head except now the sins are these ones, here, now, this life, _this_ failure, _these_ flaws. Filling in all the shit Steve _won't_ say, the disgust and impatience he won't show, maybe won't even feel, and mostly, mostly with this shit Bucky ends up furious with _himself_ , knotted up and so fucking angry and right now he can't. Doesn't know why. It's not there, it's not where he can reach it. 

Even in his head he's not in the fucking concrete room, and he's not that fucking bastard's shadow, he's just watching it and he can't stop it; that he's watching himself and seeing what he never had enough fucking _self_ to see and knowing that in that room, over and over, all he'd ever done was crumple. All he'd ever done was fold, and give, and kneel. 

And not out of fear. Not only out of fear. 

He shakes his head, but it still . . .tries to come out in words. He doesn't want it, doesn't want to know that, doesn't want to _see that_ and the fucking childish shit, the skin of it that wraps itself all the way around his brain, maybe it thinks talking is like getting rid of it, like if the words get out of him, the thoughts, the knowing, that'll run out too. Like water. That's not how it works, but something in him won't believe it, something makes him try - 

He doesn't want to say it and it doesn't matter and how fucking often is that the story of his life.

"I didn't . . .feel things." He hears his own voice, hears the words come slowly. Like he's someone else, like he's operating a machine. Hears the words. What they say isn't true, can't actually be true, so he corrects himself to, "Or I didn't . . . know I did. What they were. I didn't think that way, I didn't . . . " 

And now this is all like a fucking bad joke, now he can't find the words to explain it, like back then he couldn't recognize - 

"I didn't remember," he says, slowly, "how to fucking feel anything." 

He could stop there. It'd almost be true. Maybe he fucking should. But it's a lie and he started and if he stops it's going to sit in his throat and rot and why shouldn't he fucking say it, why shouldn't Steve fucking know. Know how far. 

"Except when I failed him," he says. Makes himself say it in English, too, not hide, it would be _easier_ to say it in Russian, the language where he didn't start out a person, where he didn't have any pride. "Except about his anger, or disappointment, or disgust. I knew how to feel those." 

He thinks he should probably say more, but the syllables unravel and he can't think of what. 

Where the water touches his right arm his skin's tinged with red. 

Steve's hand stays where it is. Points of contact against his skin. They stay the same. Steve keeps his hand where it is, doesn't push harder, doesn't pull back. 

For a minute he doesn't say anything, and when he does, he clears his throat first. 

He asks, "Bucky - can you look at me?" and he almost sounds like . . . Bucky doesn't even know. Not like a kid, not really, except the way kids get when they're unsure. That kind of unsure. 

Bucky turns. Puts his back to the side of the tub, pulls his legs in. Like _he's_ a fucking kid. Makes himself look at Steve's face and all its worried, unhappy lines. The ones that are mostly his fault. Always his fault. 

Steve looks at Bucky like he's trying to find something, and takes a breath like he's going to say something, and then stops. He looks down at his own bent knee, still like he's searching, or trying to remember, or trying to figure out what to say. And Bucky feels stilted and distant, and he's waiting for something, and he knows what the fuck it is, but his head won't let him think it, or look at it head on. Never, never fucking look at it head on.

Steve looks like he's about to speak once, twice, maybe three times, before he finally looks back up at Bucky. "He had no _God-damned_ right," he says, "to even have a fucking _opinion_ about you." The words come out deliberate and even and just barely not through his teeth. "That piece of _shit_ ," he says, and his voice stays the same, "didn't deserve to breathe the same _air_ as you. And if - " 

He stops there, and looks up. Bucky watches his jaw tighten, his throat move when he swallows, and then Steve meets his eyes and says, "And if you ever find out anything I can do to make you see that, tell me, and I'll do it, but Bucky - " and he takes a breath, "you've _never_ done anything to deserve that shit from anyone. Never fucking mind him." 

It should mean something. It does, it's just . . . stuck, it's like - 

It's like suffocating and knowing that there's only a fucking pane of glass between you and the air, but he can't figure out how to make it break. 

Maybe he's trying when he says, "I think there used to be at least a dozen women who'd disagree with you." Maybe he's grasping at something. Straws. Just wants to not be _this_ , to breathe.

The smile that flickers across Steve's face maybe looks like he's doing the same. "You know," he says, "their unrealistic expectations weren't actually your responsibility _either_. You never promised anything. You were pretty clear about that. So they were wrong, too." 

And there should be a follow-up to that, one more kick at the glass, but Bucky can't figure out what it is, can't figure out what would work. Right now remembering doesn't mean much, and maybe he remembers those women, those girls, maybe he remembers being the person they wanted, remembers how it always ended sometimes with shouting, sometimes with tears, sometimes both, when they didn't get the marriage proposal they were waiting for. 

But it's like remembering it happen to someone else. Like something he read in a book. 

After a moment Steve reaches out to touch his face with one hand, push his hair back and then let the hand rest on his shoulder. "Hey," he says. "C'mere, let me work on your back." 

 

Around the time the water hits just warm, Steve pulls the plug. Bucky thinks that maybe some of the ache and sudden pain in his back when he moves is less, but he can't really tell. He can't really tell anything, can't tell how anything actually feels out of the mess on the inside of his head. What's real and what's just his fucking brain working itself up to the point that it just dumps what it can't handle down his spine and into whatever nerves it can get to. 

Almost everything gets mixed up, messed up, mixed together. Except not quite everything. Most things. Not everything.

Some things he keeps apart. Some things don't _get_ to cross, he won't fucking let them, keeps them apart with space outside his body and not just walls inside his head. Space and time and walls and everything else because if this is all he has, if this is all he _gets_ \- 

There are some things he won't let cross. Won't let mix. 

That's why they're both dry, and towels hung back over rails, why they're both half-dressed before Bucky lets himself catch Steve's arm. Before he lets himself pull Steve close enough that he can get the other hand behind Steve's head and pull Steve close enough to kiss him, hard. Because he's not going to do this until it's because he _wants_ to, until it's not any kind of fucking abdication, appeasement; won't, _won't_ until it's _walking his fucking way back_ because if this is all he fucking gets that isn't tainted already he will fucking die before he lets it be. 

And it's - 

And every time he - 

Every single time he does this he's throwing himself forward blind. 

It's like throwing himself into the black and hoping he's right and that everything - that there's something there to hold him, that it's not the fucking cliff-edge, pit-edge, waiting for him to hit the ground at the bottom and fracture, shatter everything (and still, still have to live through it). That it's still not a mistake. Not the first time in a bombed out Hell, not any time between, not now. 

God _please_ (because if you go far enough there's no pride) don't let it be wrong now. 

And it hasn't been, hasn't been wrong yet, so all it means is a lightness in his head when Steve kisses him back. When Steve's lips part and he shifts his weight and takes the step, when Steve presses close like he wants to, like _he_ wants this. Like there's no reason he wouldn't. 

It's fucking stupid, and he hates it, stupid flinching brittle _broken_ fear, eating like fucking acid into everything he knows, stripping everything thin and leaving him weak, but he can't, he doesn't know - 

Fuck, the only things he ever knows are real, _knows_ , are the things he can touch right now. Everything else is a question. Every fucking thing else he has to take on trust. And every fucking day sands that down, off, leaves him raw. 

So when Steve responds, and responds the way he does, the relief that hits is its own fucking high. Makes Bucky's head light, wears away at the edges of control and the things that make him careful. Piles up the words in his head like a flood hitting a wall and most of them don't come out. 

_Want you - want you begging, want you shaking, panting, gasping, want to watch how I can make you feel, how far I can take you, want to know you want me to do it, Jesus Christ, Steve -_

In a snatch for air Steve's mouth and breath shape _oh thank God_ and then it's hard to tell if Bucky's pushing him to the bed or if he's pulling Bucky down after him or both. 

Bucky ends up with a half-hysterical laugh drowning in the rest of it, because the part of him that wants to be pissed off Steve didn't say anything, didn't _start_ anything, it fucking crashes headlong into the rest of Bucky that knows, knows he'd've had to stop it, pull away from it, say _no_ or make himself a liar - 

He doesn't want some things to cross. Promised once he knew the difference between what he wanted and what he didn't, here, and he would never fucking lie, here, and some things don't _fucking get to cross_. So, so, so - 

If. If. If. If that, then _no_ , then _don't touch me_ , then _don't touch me like, don't ask me for that_. And there's no way back from that. Not for a while. 

Instead, here, now, this: on the bed, his leg between Steve's, Steve's mouth against his. Steve's hand stroking across his waist, up his spine and down against his lower back, pulling Bucky against him, close. Instead, this. Price of five minute's time and worry (fear) and hope. 

(Fuck, he is such a fucking - )

Steve rolls to his back, sits up enough, long enough, to get rid of the shirt he just put on. He undoes his jeans and Bucky's, pushes Bucky's down off his hips so he can kick them off, gets out of his while sliding back further onto the bed. His hands move like he's going to pull Bucky to him, but Bucky's already there, kissing Steve's mouth again, moulding his body to Steve's.

The only things he ever knows are real are the things he can touch. This, here, he can pretend he knows other things are real, that anything he remembers is true. Pretends it can be true. Pretends he can be something more than a handful of shattered glass cutting every fucking thing he touches, be something else, be human. Wants this. 

Steve's hands on the skin on his back. Steve's hands _on him_ , solid and real, pressed against him to the flat of the palm, like Steve's scared Bucky's going somewhere and wants to stop him. Knowing. Knowing him. Wanting him. Makes it stop being like throwing himself at the dark, makes it stop being like _any_ fucking thing but this, but what it is. 

Steve's breath moves against Bucky's ear, wrapped around words he doesn't need to hear to let them get under his skin where he wants them. _Stay here. Stay with me, always, stay, stay, stay._

(Oh, God, please.) 

 

Later, Steve wraps around him. 

Later is _later_. Body finally exhausted, as tired as his head, covered in scattered marks he can still feel on his skin. Later is sun-setting-light and not wanting to move, ever again, and not having to. Warm enough; Steve's there. He wraps himself around Bucky, as much as he can, and pulls the comforter over both of them. 

Steve curls around him, wraps his arms around Bucky's ribcage and his waist, rests his cheek against the curve of Bucky's neck. And he wants this, too. Pressure of skin and bone against his, body against his, and fuck, it's all going to fucking fall on him again, everything but not right here, not right now. 

Steve's left arm bends, so his fingers rest just below Bucky's collarbone. Bucky's left hand can't feel the texture of skin, just shapes, but he traces the bones from tip to wrist anyway, while he lets his eyes close. 

Feels Steve's breath on his skin, each exhale.


	2. post-script

In the morning, Steve wakes up before he does. Not how it usually goes. 

And for once consciousness comes like turning on one of those new twisty lightbulbs, starting kinda dim and then growing, so slow you barely notice the change except at the end of it you can see things you couldn't when you flipped the switch. That's . . . not how it usually goes, either. Bucky doesn't remember the last time he woke up like this. It's either all-at-once, almost painful, or its like trying to claw through sludge to a surface. 

He aches less than he expects. The stupid cat sniffs at his face. 

He can feel that Steve's not right up against his back - still here, lower leg still tangled in his, Steve's knee touching the back of his thigh, but not stomach and chest against his back. So he knows Steve's awake, and when he rolls a little towards being on his back, he can see Steve lying there, propped up on his elbow, leaning his head against his hand. 

With the idleness of having just woken up, Bucky thinks _you need a haircut_ , because Steve's hair's got long enough now there's a flattened whorl where his head moves on the pillow, and the edges of the whorl are sticking up. "Nice hair," is what Bucky says, reaching over with his left hand to poke at the bit that's sticking straight up. 

He works himself over to lie on his back. Steve doesn't pull his leg away, ends up with his knee against Bucky's, lower leg crossed over. 

"Thanks, did it special," Steve replies, his mouth quirking. He still looks tired, and Bucky hates it when Steve looks tired, which is almost fucking always - but the worry-lines aren't there right now.

It's something. 

It's early still, but it's passed the usual alarm, so Steve must've turned them off. Given the angle of the light, he must've muted Bucky's phone completely, so the food alarms wouldn't start. Must've got up long enough to feed the fuzzy idiot, too, or she'd be a lot more pointed than just sniffing at Bucky's face. 

When Bucky frowns a little and asks, "What are you doing?" he mostly means _why are you still in bed_ \- except he already knows the answer, because _he_ hadn't woken up yet, so then the question's why's Steve lying there like that instead of going through his morning news stuff or running through practice on the language program he's started using, so the thoughts all kind of mix up, and the question comes out _what are you doing?_ because Steve's not doing _that_. 

Great communicating, Barnes. A+. 

The smile around Steve's eyes is simple, but the half-curve his mouth makes is complicated the way that happens when you're not sure the person you're talking to is gonna take something the way you do. And thinking that, Bucky realizes how close he's watching Steve's face again, how intently he's looking for anything there is to read. He tries to stop, or at least pull back. Less. At least less. 

It's not fair. Not fair to Steve. Nobody should have to watch themselves that close, hover over managing every little flicker that might show. Nobody should feel like they have to. He knows Steve does. 

Steve says, "I woke up and you were right here. I was thinking about how amazing that was." 

And the first flinch is _that's sentimental garbage, Steve,_ but he stamps on it, hard. Makes himself not, makes himself keep his fucking mouth shut and keep the first cringe and defense behind his teeth. But it's like water on frozen skin - doesn't matter if you need it, doesn't matter if all you can think about is wanting to feel warm again, doesn't matter if it's just barely fucking room temperature when it touches you, it still burns and you still pull away. He makes himself swallow the first flinch but he can't not. 

So Bucky catches Steve's jaw in his left hand and makes a big show of turning his head this way and that with a frown like he's puzzled or lost something, before he says, "I'm looking for the head wound," and Steve shakes his head and pulls Bucky's hand away, covering it with his. Bucky elaborates, "Clearly you're fucking concussed." 

Steve's still smiling when he leans down to kiss him; he bites Bucky's lower lip after he does, and pretty obviously lets it stand as a retort. 

And the same burn's still there, trying to force words up Bucky's throat and out his mouth, trying to keep going, and the effort of fucking cutting them off means he's got no room left to think about something else to say. But if the burn's still there the other part's creeping up on it, the desperate, driving, pathetic need for the heat, where you crawl all the way in and hiss the pain through your teeth.

"You know," Steve's saying, as he traces between the fingers of Bucky's left hand with his middle fingertip, "I used to worry about what the Hell I was going to do when you got married." 

It's not quite a non-sequitur, not as much of one as it might look, because it's all about the same thing - but it's close enough to jar Bucky's head to one side, to knock the whole struggle with himself over so he can latch onto a trailing part, one that's easier and doesn't push anything against raw skin. So he can frown at Steve in disbelief and say, "What in Hell made you think I was ever gonna get married?" 

Steve looks amused, raises both eyebrow. "Well I sure wasn't," he says, and when Bucky snorts at him adds, "you know I was clearly gonna drop dead of something before I got to thirty." 

"Yeah, stop that," Bucky says, not really joking. "You're not funny. And you're wrong. And you were wrong then too. I gave it one year tops before one of the neighbourhood girls got wise to how 'smart and devoted' beat 'tall and broad', especially when it comes to making an actual fucking life. Then I was going to be Uncle Bad Example." 

This time Steve gives _him_ the disbelieving look. "Bucky," he says, patiently, "you don't know _how_ to be a bad example. You wouldn't know where to _start_. You couldn't even figure it out if you tried." 

"Hey," Bucky retorts, "I swore, drank, got into fights and ran around with women, I'd be a bad influence by definition." 

"Everyone swore and drank," Steve counters, which granted is kinda true - most everyone did, at some point or other, "and mostly you got into fights because I got you into them." 

"Not all of them," Bucky objects; Steve rolls his eyes. 

"No," Steve agrees, "then there were the ones where the other guy tried to hit you first or was trying to hit someone else or hit someone with a chair. Or terrorizing some poor girl who got into a rougher part of the neighbourhood than she could handle. _Clearly_ you're right, that's not anything I'd want in any kid of mine." 

The sarcasm clangs like an armful of dropped pots. Bucky's pretty sure he could keep up with his point except it'd need turning to remember stuff he doesn't like that much, so he abandons that line and tries something else.

He says, "I'm pretty sure I was running around with a married woman at one point," and the corner of Steve's mouth quirks again. 

"Yeah," he says, "Augusta Piazzi. For like two months before you were due to ship out. We had a big fight about it." 

"See?" Bucky says but Steve shakes his head. 

"No," he says, "we had a big fight about it because even though I just started with giving you a hard time, that was the first time you said it didn't matter since you were going to Hell anyway. And you were wrong. And you're still wrong."

Bucky squints at him. There's maybe a distant twist, something trying to dig hooks in because he doesn't remember, or about what Steve's saying, but he shoves it away and instead says, "The only thing I remember about ever having that fight is we ended by agreeing not to talk about it ever again." He lets his voice get a bit accusatory. Or pretending to be, anyway. 

"You started it," Steve replies, like they're on a playground; Bucky rolls his eyes and shoves Steve's head away while Steve grins at him. 

Then he adds, "We also had a big fight about it because if Tom Piazzi found out about it he was going to flat-out kill you. For the record." 

The memories are fuzzy, fragmented - obviously wasn't that important, or didn't last that long, but Bucky tries to comb through them anyway, grasp at a cloudy half-image. "Was he a stocky guy with a toupee?" he asks. 

"And a scar on his face from where someone glassed him," Steve confirms. His hand's been moving across the top of Bucky's chest, tracing out bones and the contour of the seam-scar, while they talk, and Bucky doesn't really want him to stop. And it's all bullshit and all these people are dead, but it doesn't matter. It's better than a lot of things. 

For the Hell of it, Bucky makes a show of contemplation and then shrugs. 

"Nah, I could've taken him," he says and Steve laughs. 

"Now who's a reckless idiot?" Steve asks. He runs his hand across Bucky's collar and over, down over his right arm and back up to the side of his neck, back over to where his left arm starts. Does it a couple times again, palm dry and warm against Bucky's skin and making it hum; just before it gets distracting, Steve stops, and strokes slow circles into the front of Bucky's right shoulder. 

"That'd be you," Bucky tells him, and then mostly forgets what they're arguing about when Steve kisses him again. 

It's long and slow and easy. Bucky works his left arm under Steve's ribs to curve around him, pull him over closer; Steve settles half over him, mostly straddling Bucky's thigh while Bucky wraps his arms around Steve's back. 

Steve pulls back enough to say, "Missed you," and rest his forehead against Bucky's and it's the same burn again but he wants, God he _wants_ it he doesn't fucking care if it hurts. 

He pulls Steve back to him, hands on both sides of Steve's face, jaw, breathes, "I'm right here," and kisses Steve again, harder, and arches his low back up against Steve's body over his. Steve bears down on him and kisses his jaw and the hollow of his throat. 

Distantly he hears the kitten jump down off the bed, complaining about so much movement, but she'll just have to cope.


End file.
